Air Traffic Controller Couldn't Stop Watching Samuel L. Jackson Film

According an AP report a Cleveland-area air traffic controller was suspended for watching a movie while at work on Sunday morning.

The controller's microphone was inadvertently activated, transmitting the audio of the movie — the 2007 crime thriller "Cleaner," starring Samuel L. Jackson — for more than three minutes to all the planes in the airspace that the controller was supposed to be monitoring, the agency said.

The controller's microphone became stuck in the transmit position, preventing him from hearing incoming radio calls or issuing instructions to planes during the incident, the agency said.

Sounds scary. And when we first read that report, we thought they meant The Cleaner, the poorly-received 2007 Cedric the Entertainer comedy. No, they meant Cleaner, the unreleased 2007 thriller directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) starring Jackson, Ed Harris, and Eva Mendes. According to IMDB, it's about "a former cop who now earns a wage as a crime scene cleaner unknowingly participates in a cover-up at his latest job." Sounds intriguing, but maybe not intriguing enough to distract one from monitoring the safety of airplanes carrying hundreds of people on board.

We found a clip, and we have to say, it doesn't look terrible. Moody, well-photographed (it had a $25 million budget). Definitely releasable in North America.

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